LG's first UHD Blu-ray player, UP970, has Dolby Vision

LG is late to the ball but brings something new to the table. The South Korean company’s first UHD Blu-ray player will be one of the first to support the Dolby Vision HDR format – like its OLED TVs.

Dolby Vision end-to-end

In Hollywood there are currently two relevant HDR formats: HDR10 and Dolby Vision.

Dolby Vision has some advantages including support for 12-bit colors and the ability to process so-called dynamic metadata that can optimize the HDR pictures on a scen-by-scene basis instead of once for the full movie.

This obviously requires that the movie is mastered in Dolby Vision and currently there are no Dolby Vision UHD Blu-rays on the market. They will come but you need a little patience.

LG has since 2016 supported Dolby Vision on all of its high-end LCD and OLED models but to experience movies or TV series in the format you would have to rely on streaming.

UP970 UHD Blu-ray player

Several of the big electronics brands launched UHD Blu-ray players last year but LG chose to wait. At today’s presentation the company said that it feel UHD Blu-ray is now at a ”tipping point”.

The LG player will carry model number UP970. Besides Dolby Vision it obviously supports the open HDR10 format, which is mandatory in the UHD Blu-ray specification that also includes Ultra HD resolution, 10-bit colors, and an expanded color space.

Despite LG’s tight alliance with Dolby, UP970 will not actually be the first player to support the Dolby Vision format. Oppo has already announced an UHD Blu-ray player that will have DV added via a firmware update. The same is true for LG. UP970 will launch without DV and have it added later via firmware.

UP970 will also support 4K, HDR10 and Dolby Vision streaming from services such as Netflix and Amazon.